In 1984, two artists used a simple process to create a story that captivated an audience for years and generated billions of dollars in revenue.

That same process is being used today by a master copywriter to attract hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers.

With companies creating millions of web pages of content marketing, finding an untold story or a new angle can feel like an impossible task. Especially when you want to avoid creating a story so unique nobody understands it … or wants to pay for it.

So how do you create a story that cuts through the noise and strikes at the heart of your ideal client?

Let me tell you about a simple, 4-step process to get that done right now …

Why a fresh angle is so hard to come by

One of the easiest places to start in writing your business story is what you do and who you do it for.

You’re probably already familiar with a number of businesses whose story is based on this premise, for example:

• Social media marketing for real estate agents
• Sales training for technology companies
• Direct response copywriting techniques for bloggers
• Education design as the foundation of an online business

That’s still a strong place to start, and if you find a logical combination that hasn’t been done before, it won’t take much to stand out from the crowd.

But what if your combination of ideas has been done before?

What if it’s been done not only many times over, but by bigger, better known names? How do you create the additional edge that stops people comparing you to the many other business offering that you have?

The dark side of unique

You may be tempted to rack your brains and find something you can do or offer that nobody else has ever done before.

Sometimes this can work to attract attention and customers.

Or it might just attract attention … and no customers.

Even huge corporations with a gazillion dollar marketing budget have had their fair share of unique flops. Just Google the McDLT burger …

So, what can you do instead? What really works?

Creating a billion-dollar story

In 1984 two cartoonists decided it would be pretty cool to have a best-selling comic strip.

Not just one they would love to write, but one their audience would love to buy.

So they started by thinking what their target market (teenagers) were really into at the time.

After extensively brainstorming a list of teen topics, they circled the top three things which were:

1. Ninjas
2. Mutants
3. Turtles

They matched this combination to their love of comic strips and their skills as cartoonists to give birth to a craze that would go on to generate billions of dollars of revenue in licensing.

I love this story, not just because I grew up watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and have watched several episodes out of nostalgia while writing this), but because it’s a simple way to create a fresh angle that marries what you want to deliver and what your customer wants to have.

I learned about this story from Mike Palmer’s talk at last year’s AWAI Copywriting Bootcamp. He’s the head copywriter at Stansberry & Associates Investment Research. Since being there, he has attracted more than 400,000 paying subscribers and his most successful promotion achieved a gross revenue of $5.2 million.

And it’s this type of process he uses as a starting point for creating fresh stories that catch the interest of of readers.

The beauty of it is that you’re not limited to using it to define your brand or business. You can experiment with it for blog posts, eBooks, products, or new services.

So let’s work through an example of how this might work in a topic with lots of competition: Marketing advice and services for small business owners.

Step 1: Revisit what you do and who you do it for

You can’t write a strong story if you don’t know who you’re telling it to.

If you already have a customer profile, dig it out and set it in front of you. Build a clear picture in your mind of who you want to reach and remind yourself what you can offer them.

Remember, our example topic is marketing advice and services for small business owners.This is a pretty broad area with lots of competitors who are already operating and established. Using the following steps, you can still carve out a story no-one else is talking about.

Step 2: What are your customers happy to pay for?

Your story is only going to work for your business if it aligns with your customer’s demand. In the above example, a few things your customers are probably happy to pay for might include:

• Sales
• Leads
• Email / mail subscribers (assuming those turn into leads)
• Exposure of their business to their target market

So far this follows a pretty logical order for creating a story, and most people offering marketing for small businesses are talking about getting people more sales, more subscribers, leads, and exposure.

But you can start telling an ever-fresher story by considering …

Step 3: What other conversations are they having?

Entering the conversation your customer is already having is a well known marketing strategy for getting your reader’s attention.

But it doesn’t have to be a conversation about something they want. In fact, it’s often something they’re sick and tired of.

So, in the example above, small businesses may be getting sick and tired of companies promising sales and leads without proof or credibility.

Or perhaps you’ve noticed more business owners want to be known for the personality behind the service, not just what they do.

And with content marketing methods rapidly evolving, you may have seen examples of questions, confusion, and interest surrounding videos, webinars, and infographics.

Eventually, you might come up with a list of interests that looks like this:

• Increasing skepticism — more demand for proof
• Interest in well known business personalities / personal branding
• Increasing interest / confusion over new methods of content marketing

By this stage you might already see opportunities for telling a new story, or creating a new product that catches their attention and still gives them what they want.

Step 4: Add in a dose of “you”

Your business story naturally focuses on your customer, and then on the product you offer, but you can add an extra layer of interest by including elements like:

• Your personal interests
• Your professional background
• The reason you started your business
• Your skills

So let’s look at a couple of different ways we could combine the elements from these 4 stages:

A marketer with a personal obsession for facts, figures, and analytics notices a growing popularity for articles containing case studies and results. He decides to start a campaign of testing one marketing initiative a week, sharing the results, and explaining how to interpret the analytics. He starts promoting his “see-through marketing” explaining that it’s a reaction to business owners struggling to make sense of knowing what marketing actually works. If his story is a hit, he can then start to launch training programs and products that build on this interest and demand from his customers.

Or, take the marketer who has been in every musical since nursery school and feels at home on the stage. She notices more people want to use videos and webinars, but don’t know how to present themselves, smile, to hold their posture etc. She shares her stage experience and trains entrepreneurs to stand out in the “Broadway of online business,” helping them attract subscribers and build trust with confident, charismatic presentations.

The same four steps, but two completely different market positions. And as you can see, these four steps can be combined and interpreted in countless ways.

If you play around with the four steps, you can build a story that combines your strengths, personality, customer demand, and current trends to tell a story nobody is talking about in your industry.

And it’s one way to stop your business being seen as a commodity by your customers.

Instead of being just “another” copywriter, marketer, or web designer, you’re the copywriter, marketer or web designer who … [insert your story here].

What’s your story?

What do you think?

Do you look for a story to connect with when you’re hiring someone? What are the stories of businesses you admire? What elements stand out to you?

Let us know in the comments below!

About the Author: Amy Harrison is a copywriter for entrepreneurs over at Harrisonamy.com. Check out her recent free report on how to write sales copy when personality is part of your business.

As a copywriter, you know that words have power.

You know words can influence, inform, and inspire.

They can persuade your fellow humans to do some amazing things (or to do the wrong things, but we won’t go there today).

What you may not realize is that your words can change the world.

Here’s something else that’s really cool that you might not have realized …

The keys to world-changing writing are also the keys to damn good copywriting.

But as you know, good writing doesn’t happen all by itself. So let’s talk about what it takes to be damned good … and what it takes to change the world.

Your words must be meaningful

As Hugh MacLeod said, the market for something to believe in is infinite.

Your writing must give your readers something to believe in.

Some writers are called to create a great masterpiece like Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. If that’s you, that’s awesome.

But most of us are doing something much more humble. And there’s nothing in the world wrong with that.

It can be as simple as the promise of SEO Made Simple.

You know that nasty, frustrated feeling of being overwhelmed by something like optimizing content for search engines? Maybe for you, it’s another topic. But we all have a thorny problem like this. It feels complicated. It feels kind of scary. It feels like it’s going to be very easy to mess up.

For readers who are feeling that same kind of overwhelm, the promise to make search engines simple gives something to believe in.

That they can do this. That they can keep moving forward and get over this stuck spot.

Whether you’re telling a grand, heroic story or just solving a frustrating problem, the concept is exactly the same.

World-changing writers and copywriters both begin with the meaning.

Your words must be sticky

But meaning isn’t enough.

Meaningful words that aren’t also sticky will slip silently into your readers’ left ears and swoop swiftly out of their right ears. (Or would that be eyes?)

Your words must stick inside your readers’ heads. Your reader will be changed by words that stick, and will share your words with others.

No stickiness = flash in the pan.
Some stickiness = successful marketing campaign.
Mega stickiness = world-changing movement.

This is where all your copywriting tips and tricks carry over to the craft of world-changing writing. Headlines. Subheaders. Bullet points. Specific details.

And most importantly, storytelling.

World-changing writers and copywriters both strive for a sticky story.

Your words must be authentic

There’s a lot of smarmy social media kool-aid out there about authenticity. That’s not what we’re talking about.

What we’re talking about this this: No one will care about your meaningful, sticky message if it smells like bullshit.

If your readers suspect you’re trying to sell them something they don’t want — whether it’s a product or an idea — you’ll lose their attention forever.

That’s why your words must be authentic.

“Authentic” doesn’t have to mean sharing intimate details of your personal life. (In fact, if you could refrain from letting us know what your cat had for breakfast, that would be awesome.)

But it does mean that you have to believe in what you’re writing. You have to let a piece of yourself shine through in your words.

You have to give a damn.

World-changing writers and copywriters both let authenticity into their writing.

So where’s the world-changing?

The world isn’t changed in one fell swoop. (Or even a swell foop.)

The world gets changed one person at a time.

One reader who reads your meaningful, sticky, authentic words. One reader who is a little bit different after reading your words than they were before.

If you’ve done your job well, that one reader will share your words with one more reader. Then two, then ten, then a hundred.

That’s how the world is changed. By spreading ideas that are meaningful, sticky, and authentic.

So how about you?

What idea will you spread? Will it be grand or humble?

Whatever your idea is, Pace would love to give you a hand with making your message a little more meaningful, a little sticker, and a little more authentic. To do that, check out her free video course, The 6 Steps to World-Changing Writing.

And let us know about your world-changing idea in the comments.

About the Author: Pace Smith is the co-leader of the Connection Revolution, where she helps dreamers blossom into world-changers. Click here to get her free video course, The 6 Steps to World-Changing Writing. Sonia does a lot of writing around here, and is pleased as punch to be one of the teachers in Pace's workshop.

Did you know Copyblogger Media has a WordPress hosting division? Many people don’t, because it’s been a bit under-the-radar.

The whole thing started with our frustration with web hosting in general. Specifically, the fact that a lot of “WordPress hosting” amounts to generic one-click installation of the CMS on a standardly-configured box — which simply doesn’t cut it for optimal performance and security.

So, last year we decided to manage our high-traffic network of content and product sites ourselves. We did this by bringing into the family a team of people who themselves also ran high-traffic sites; people who had invested a ton of time learning how to make WordPress work really well at the server level, because, like us, their sites and livelihoods depended on it.

After enjoying the best hosting experience of my entire online career, it seemed smart to follow our usual modus operandi. That is, if we use it ourselves, then there’s a good chance others might want it as well.

With that, Synthesis was born. This time, however, we kept things limited to our existing customers and people we knew.

No hype. No big launch. No dancing unicorn videos.

Just a simple, unwavering focus on ensuring that Synthesis is the best WordPress hosting experience ever. Word of mouth, however, is a strange and wonderful thing.

Word Gets Around…

Pretty soon, we started getting pinged by people with serious performance and security requirements. Our response? No problem.

GeekBeat TV – The web show fronted by Cali Lewis gets hammered with traffic from fans, and we eliminated their sporadic downtime and reduced page load from 7.5 seconds to 1.4 seconds.

BlogWorld – The premier mega-conference of the blogging and new media space was crippled during its twice-yearly crunch time. We rescued them from their publicly-traded web host and gave them a quantum leap in performance.

Diario de Yucatan – Diario de Yucatan is one of Mexico’s most visited websites. They chose Synthesis for a flexible, secure, and scalable hosting platform after dealing with less-than-reliable performance.

Larry Brown Sports – One of the top independent publishers of sports-related content, LBS gets big traffic spikes from ESPN, FOX Sports, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports, and NBC Sports.

Digital Photography School – After growing to 5,000,000 unique monthly visitors, DPS needed a highly scalable, secure architecture that could accommodate their existing external caching configuration. They said jump, we said how high.

Add to that Chris Pirillo’s massive site Lockergnome, Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim, and the company and client sites of online marketing agency BlueGlass, and we quickly got comfortable with the fact that we could handle any kind of site’s hosting needs … as long as they used WordPress.

But Synthesis is not just about sites with huge traffic. Any online publisher or business with a web presence needs to be very serious about the performance and security of the place people more often first experience your brand.

For example:

Pushing Social – Stanford Smith does everything right when it comes to creating great content, but every time I tweeted one of his articles, his site crashed. The last straw was when he got maliciously hacked. Stanford happily came over to Synthesis.

Convince and Convert – Jay Baer makes a living speaking, consulting, and doing a lot of traveling. That’s all made possible thanks to content marketing via his website, which he doesn’t want to worry about beyond hitting publish. Synthesis gave him fast, secure, and reliable peace of mind.

TomKat Studio – Kim Stoegbauer started a blog to share her craft projects, decorating, and party ideas, and then got crushed with big links from HGTV and Martha Stewart. Now, Synthesis allows Kim’s company to grow even larger when those magic link moments happen.

If you’re looking for a better WordPress hosting experience, now may be a good time to join these fine folks.

Save 20% This Week Only (Only With This Special Link)

We’re still perfectly happy to allow Synthesis to grow by recommendations from clients and partners. The good will alone that comes from solving the frustration of a poor hosting experience is pretty fantastic.

So we thought it would be nice to offer a price break this week. Since Synthesis doesn’t have a “cram 5,000 sites on a single server” model, we’re not as cheap as some other hosts. Then again, if your site can’t stay up during moments of traffic success, or gets compromised by hackers, did you really get a bargain?

Anyway, this week only — until Friday 5/18 at 5pm PST — you can save 20% off our regular plan pricing, which should help. And you get to keep that discounted price for as long as you keep your plan.

IMPORTANT: To get the deal, you must click this link.

After clicking that link, you’ll see revised pricing for each plan that is automagically 20% lower than usual (on the other hand, if you don’t use that link, you’ll see the full prices). Once you’ve clicked and are at the site, feel free to check out all the features, case studies, background on how Synthesis came to be, and the frequently asked questions.

Then simply head back to Plans and Pricing to get started with Synthesis and save.

Your Best WordPress Hosting Experience Ever

As always, we want you to be delighted. And we’re pretty sure you will be.

If not, don’t forget our hassle-free 30-day money-back guarantee. Simply contact support and we’ll promptly issue a refund.

Here’s that special link again.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter and Google+.

Want to hear about the day in the life of a so-called “successful entrepreneur?”

Yesterday, I stayed in bed until about 2 PM. I watched the last few episodes of Mad Men. Around sunset, I took a leisurely stroll down the beach. When I got back, I hung out with a friend for a couple of hours, ate dinner, and went to bed.

In other words … I goofed off.

And while I was goofing off, my business generated a pretty decent chunk of revenue.

You want to know the coolest part?

I did absolutely nothing to “earn” it.

I didn’t check my email. I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone. I didn’t write anything.

If I wanted to, I could do the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and it would keep on trucking all by itself. Parts of my business are so automated I could actually die, and it would be months before anyone noticed.

You might think, “That’s not right. Nobody should be able to goof off and get paid for it.”

But you know what?

I’m totally unashamed. Here’s why:

I worked my ass off to get here

For the past three years, I’ve worked at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for stretches of around six months without taking a single day off.

For the vast majority of that work, I wasn’t paid a dime. Rather, I was building a machine capable of running on its own.

That’s what truly successful entrepreneurs do:

We build money machines.

We take our expertise and transform it into systems that run without us. Sometimes that means hiring employees, but in my opinion, the best system to put in place is something infinitely cheaper, easier to manage, and simpler to create right now.

(Ready? I’m going to lay my super ninja, “make the internet your ATM” breakthrough secret weapon on you.)

The best “money machine” you can build is content.

Why is content King?

Well, we could argue about whether it really is King or not, but most of the marketing world is coming to understand that content is important … maybe even indispensable.

Why?

Well, think about this:

These days, some of the highest paid people in the world are the copywriters who craft the “junk” you receive in the mail. The best ones charge a minimum of $100,000 to create a single direct mail piece.

Obviously, there’s a lot of research and thinking and smarts involved, but here’s what’s funny:

A beginning copywriter will compile demographic data, conduct focus groups, dutifully collect the official line on what the product’s USP is supposed to be — you know, all the normal marketing tomfoolery.

An experienced copywriter, on the other hand, often finds the best salesperson in the company, hands them a tape recorder, and says, “Tape yourself doing your next 10 sales calls.”

From there, our crafty copywriter transcribes the sales calls, isolates the most persuasive elements, and organizes those into a letter. Then they mail the letter to 200,000 people.

It’s not necessarily less work. It’s smarter, more effective work.

Some would say they aren’t being “creative.”

Instead of reinventing the wheel, they’re taking a salesperson whose methods already work, distilling and cloning that salesperson 200,000 times, and instead of paying each of those clones a salary, they can be distributed in the mail for around a buck apiece.

The point? (And I do have one)

Your blog post isn’t just a blog post. Your podcast isn’t just a podcast. Your video isn’t just a video.

They’re components of a system.

If you’re not getting any results from it, it’s not the media’s fault. Blog posts and podcasts and videos and any other media can and will create sales …

… but only if the system wrapped inside the media is effective. If the system sucks, the result will suck, and the flashiest and most whizbang media in the world won’t save you.

So, the question becomes:

How do you create content that sells stuff?

Let’s talk about that next.

How to get paid to goof off

Sounds awfully nice, doesn’t it?

Well, here’s the “secret” formula:

1. Find somebody who is good at selling stuff (maybe that’s you)
2. Create content that duplicates what they do
3. Distribute said content to as many people as possible
4. Repeat the process until you have the desired level of income
5. Go goof off (hooray!)

If you want to “make money while you sleep,” you’ve got to create the kind of content that does the work for you.

Really, that’s it. It’s the whole shebang.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. And I’d be lying to you if I said anyone can do it.

The fact is, most of the top marketers in the world have experience selling one-on-one. Look into their past, and you’ll find they were on a sales floor, going door to door, or on a telephone, talking directly to customers and convincing people to buy.

Most people are too squeamish to do that, and in my opinion, that’s the real reason why almost everyone fails at making money online. They try to create a piece of content that does the selling for them, but they have no idea how selling works, so they essentially end up cloning the worst salesperson in the world.

That’s not going to get you what you need. Your content is an extension of you, and if you suck, your content probably sucks too.

Does that mean you’re doomed if you hate to sell?

Fortunately, no.

Mainly because you probably don’t understand what selling is.

If you’re afraid of selling, you probably have visions of pushy car salesmen chasing old ladies through the dealership parking lot, willing to say or do anything to make the sale.

And it makes you nauseous. You would rather change careers than become somebody like that.

But here’s the good news:

Good salespeople are not pushy. Good salespeople will never lie to the customer. Good salespeople usually aren’t even called salespeople. You give them your money in exchange for something you want, never even realizing you participated in a sales process.

That’s what you need to learn how to do.

If you’re still terrified, the other method is to study master salespeople and marketers and try to model what they do. In other words, build a swipe file.

The only problem is, you don’t know exactly what to model. In the beginning, you duplicate elements that don’t matter, and you ignore elements that are essential. It’s only after years of trial and error that you finally get the hang of it and do it right.

This method of learning selling does work. Just be prepared to starve for a few years as a penalty for being a scaredy-cat.

Either way though, there’s good news:

You don’t have to work until the day you die

Unless you want to, of course. Some entrepreneurs would have it no other way, and I respect that.

Also, it’s important to realize sometimes you don’t have a choice about when you quit.

As I’ve written about before, I have a (supposedly) fatal disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and every year, I lose a little bit more strength. While I’m fairly productive now, science says I’ll eventually lose the ability to move everything but my eyes. Which isn’t the end of the world, but it will slow me down.

Honestly though?

I’m not worried.

Already, my business makes more than enough money to take care of me, and every day I work to make it less and less dependent on me. One day, I might be forced to step away, or I might not, but really, that’s not the point.

The point is peace of mind.

Because of my business, I can afford the best medical care anywhere in the world. Because of my business, my family will be taken care of, regardless of what happens to me. Because of my business, I can scale beyond helping just one or two people at a time and help millions.

Strategic content is what lets me do all that.

And goofing off?

That’s an added bonus. Living is one thing, but enjoying your life is quite another, and nothing is quite so empowering as getting up every morning and knowing you can do whatever you want, not just because you’re the boss, but because your business goes on running without you.

So, learn how to sell effectively.

Clone yourself by creating lots of awesome content.

Distribute that content far and wide.

And then goof off, if you want to. Life is short, my friends, and I don’t know about you, but I intend to savor every last moment of it.

About the Author: In addition to serving as Associate Editor of Copyblogger, Jon Morrow is on a mission to help good writers get traffic they deserve. If you’re one of them, check out his blog about (surprise!) blogging.

This week on The Lede …

• Are Content Publishers Waking Up from Their App Dreams Nightmares?
• An Email Marketing Autoresponder Schedule that Sells
• 3 Quick Tips To Conquering Your Fear of Public Speaking
• Does Your Domain Say “Trust Me?”
• Why “Freemium” Fails for Startups: 3 Business Lessons from the Band New Order
• 5 Basic SEO Truths We Can Learn from Star Wars
• Peter Shankman on the Value of an Audience

If you want to grab more useful links (than the seven we highlight here) every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter.

//

Are Content Publishers Waking Up from Their App Dreams Nightmares?
The honeymoon that content apps have enjoyed is finally over. Have you built the world’s greatest timer? That’s an app. Do you regularly publish useful, engaging and entertaining content online? That’s a website. Specifically, a mobile responsive website. We’re going to be hearing more stories like the one from this publisher. Heed the warning. Don’t waste your time building and maintaining a content app. Build one great website instead …

//

An Email Marketing Autoresponder Schedule that Sells
An email autoresponder is one of the most valuable content marketing assets you can build. Sonia calls them the lazy marketer’s best friend, a mule of sorts with no need for rest or sustenance. Have you built yours? If not, here’s a great template for planning an email autoresponder that sells your product, service, or idea.

//

3 Quick Tips To Conquering Your Fear of Public Speaking
I don’t know if that old stat about it being stronger than the fear of death is true, but public speaking sure gives most people the bad sweats. Whether you’ve got a quick speech coming up soon, or you gig regularly around the world, there’s some solid advice to be had in this article. Break a leg …

//

Does Your Domain Say “Trust Me?”
It’s the backbone of every smart content producer’s toolbox. The domain name, the URL, the home base. You might be a very trustworthy person, but online, so much is riding on the first impression of that little address that pops up in search engines everywhere. At a glance, how trustworthy is your “name”?

//

Why “Freemium” Fails for Startups: 3 Business Lessons from the Band New Order
Mr. Clark jumped on Forbes again this week, this time using a New Wave band’s troubled side business as a foil to expose the problems inherent in the freemium model. And then, Mr. Gardner (Copyblogger Media’s Chief Product Officer) riffed on it, making a case for content marketing as THE way to build a business. Attack of the executives, indeed.

//

5 Basic SEO Truths We Can Learn from Star Wars
Can you guess what lines like “These are not the droids you’re looking for,” and “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” have to do with the basics of good SEO? I couldn’t. So I just read this great little article from Mr. Bartholomew instead.

//

No, You Cannot “Borrow My Audience.”
Impassioned as ever, Mr. Shankman delivers a scathing response to an unsuspecting PR person’s request. This master class in the defining principles of good content marketing (disguised as a rant) should be forwarded to anyone looking for shortcuts, fast cash, easy money, or overnight success. Know, like, and trust. They’re harder to get to than they look, baby.

Did you miss anything on Copyblogger this week?

• If it Doesn’t Sell …
• 3 Ways to Fix Your Broken Marketing
• How to Craft an Offer That Can’t Be Refused
• 20 Mistakes that Will Undermine Your Call to Action and Cost You Sales
• 10 Ways Specificity Will Help You Build a Profitable Audience
• How to Attract a Buying Audience by Integrating Search, Social, and Content

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media's Copywriter and Resident Recluse. Get more from Robert on Twitter and Google+.

As you may know, the one thing inevitable in social media is change.

On April 26, 2012 — not even a full month after launching the new timeline layout for Facebook Pages — Facebook changed the size of the profile image that is inset in all cover photos. This change applies to both personal Facebook Profiles and brand Pages.

We’ve updated our recent post on Facebook Timeline Cover Images with the new dimensions.

For some Pages, the change did not really affect the appearance of the cover photo design. But for other Pages (you’ll see a before-and-after in the post), you can see how the enlarged profile icon covered up important parts of the cover photo design. Be sure to let your Facebook friends know they should check if their cover photo is still looking good!

Check out the updated Timeline Cover Image post here.

About the Author: Danielle Glick is the Social Media Director & President of DGdesign, a social media agency that helps brands meet their business goals via strategic marketing. Connect with Danielle on Twitter @SocialMediaDFW.

Google’s been pissing people off lately. Panda, Penguin, Parakeet (okay, I made that last one up), who knows what’s next …

Then there are the social networking evangelists whose entire fortunes are deep in Zuckerberg’s asset.

And finally, the faithful content producers, who labor slowly and quietly to build their businesses one thousand words at a time.

It can all seem a bit much to keep up with. SEO isn’t bad. Social networking sites aren’t evil. Content marketing isn’t impossible. But it can feel like it sometimes.

To clear up some of this confusion and frustration for us, I’ve asked Lee Odden to jump on the show and tell us how the smart, systematic integration of search, social, and content can attract an audience … and keep businesses — both large and small — sanely profitable.

In this episode we discuss:

• The 3 phases of a holistic customer attraction plan
• What the changes in search algorithms really mean for online publishers
• How to intelligently plan a content strategy that works
• Why it’s now essential that you become a “holistic” content producer
• 5 content optimization audits you need to perform
• 3 steps to implementing your systematic content plan
• How to scale your content efforts on a limited budget

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

• Click here to download the mp3 | 30.1 MB | 25:02
• Click here to subscribe via iTunes
• Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
• Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

• Internet Marketing for Smart People Course (free)
• Optimize by Lee Odden
• Top Rank Marketing
• Content Marketing 101
• SEO Copywriting Made Simple
• Keyword Research for Content Producers
• We left the building with Girl Talk …

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media's Copywriter and Resident Recluse. Get more from Robert on Twitter and Google+.

If you’re building a business through content marketing, you’ve probably noticed that the attention span of your audience is shrinking by the second.

With the mushrooming of social networking and the growing number of mobile users surfing the web on the go, we’re all on the verge of an attention meltdown.

This can be a huge hurdle if you’re trying to effectively engage your audience and get your products or services in front of them.

That means you have to use every writing tool you can to gain and keep audience attention. Believe it or not, a return to solid writing fundamentals — and more specifically, specificity — can get you out ahead of the competition without having to strap dynamite to yourself to get noticed.

One small note before we get started …

If you only read 3 lines of this article, read these …

Specificity is especially helpful for writing your headlines.

Remember the 80/20 rule: 8 of 10 readers will read your headline copy but only 2 of 10 will read your entire post.

Since headlines are the most important part of getting your audience to read your content, you should place 50% of your emphasis on writing magnetic headlines before you write the rest of your copy.

The experts have been touting the importance of getting specific all along, and here are some of their more compelling tips to help you win the battle for your audience’s attention:

1. Get to the point

Old-school copywriter George Lois wrote a very useful guide titled Damn Good Advice (for people with talent!). In it, he gets to the heart of the importance of specificity.

Lois writes: “All creativity should communicate in a nanosecond.”

That’s about all the time you have to make an impression, but “creativity” can be misunderstood.

He reminds us that brevity is the key to good copy and that every single word counts.

“It’s not how short you make it; it’s how you make it short.”

Creativity is getting them to read your copy, without confusing hyperbole or jargon phrases.

2. Without attention, you have nothing

Without an attention grabbing headline, you can chuck your great content in the trash.

AIDA is the classic marketing formula heralded by a lot of great copywriters including Brian Clark, Sonia Simone and ad man John Carlton.

Attention. Interest. Desire. Action.

Gaining attention is gold because it’s the first step in the cycle to getting your prospects to take action and buy.

3. Grab attention by being ultra-specific

The Four U’s of headline writing as outlined by AWAI are a very helpful guide to evaluating any piece of sales copy or content:

1. Useful
2. Ultra-specific
3. Unique
4. Urgent

Useful is absolutely required. If your headline can only be one more thing, make it ultra-specific. This is key because specificity presents the most benefit to your reader.

You make a promise of the reward you’re offering up front so your prospects will have a reason to give you their precious time and read your first paragraph.

4. Specificity builds credibility

Brian Clark’s How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write reminds us that “Specificity increases credibility because specific details are simply more believable than broad assertions.”

He has some great examples of ultra-specific headlines:

• How I Made $19,931.42 Last Month With Google AdSense
• In This Free 10-Chapter, 123-Page Ebook, You’ll Learn …
• Eleven Secret Techniques That Make Bloggers Money
• Lose 36 Pounds in Only 7 Weeks
• How to Shave 5 Strokes Off Your Golf Score in 3 Days

If your headline isn’t presenting specific, rewarding information, you’re bound to get bogged down with the rest of the unreadables.

Just remember that the #1 rule for building credibility is making good on your headline’s promise.

5. Specificity is persuasion

Chris Garrett wrote about the advantages of precise details over vague guesstimates in his post The Persuasive Power of Specificity.

Statistics, exact details and case studies:

• Catch the eye
• Build curiosity
• Produce an aura of authenticity
• Show your readers your attention to detail

Being vague doesn’t work in real life and it doesn’t work in copywriting. Getting specific means revealing the cold, hard facts of what you have to offer.

On the flipside, he warns not to use specifics if they are overly technical, confusing, or can get you into legal trouble.

6. Specificity boosts your conversion rates

Marketing Experiments have proven that optimizing your headline can boost your conversion rates by 73%.

Not only will you boost your readership, but optimizing your headline by just a single word or figure can actually get more people to take the action you want them to take.

That’s reason enough to do some split-testing of your own.

7. Warning: Big words make you sound dumb

In Dean Rieck’s post 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing he references an important psychology study that showed that using overly complex language doesn’t make us look smarter to readers.

We’ve all seen inexperienced authors use big words to make themselves feel smarter.

You’re not fooling anyone, so do your research and know your audience. Remember Nathaniel Hawthorne’s maxim:

Easy reading is damned hard writing.

8. There is no substitute for great copy

Robert W. Bly wrote in The Online Copywriter’s Handbook, that the most important thing that will set you apart as an effective online marketer is “powerful, attention-getting, compelling copy”.

Your words must grab your prospect and never let them go.

9. To approach greatness, you have to start at the start

Ernest Hemingway started out as a reporter for The Kansas City Star.

He won a Nobel Prize in his later years, and credited his formative years writing “copy” as a journalist.

Each cub reporter was given a style book when they started, with these rules:

• Use short sentences
• Use short first paragraphs
• Use vigorous English
• Be positive, not negative

It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

10. One word can make all the difference

Mark Twain wrote:

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Specificity is the lighting rod that will lead your prospects through your sales cycle to take action.

Let’s get specific

We can all use help getting more specific in our copy.

There is no “the dog ate my homework” in content marketing online, do your research or somebody else will do it better and with more detail.

Know your audience, their problems, fears, desires, and dreams and you’ll be well on your way to getting them to reading your copy, and taking action on your offers.

Do you have more suggestions for getting specific? Drop them in the comments.

About the Author: Kelton Reid is an independent screenwriter and novelist, as well as a copywriter for Copyblogger Media. Get more from him on Twitter @keltonreid.

Okay, show of hands.

Who else is wondering how to turn website traffic into actual sales?

You’ve seen the statistics showing businesses that build content marketing plans experience a boatload more leads than businesses that don’t. You’ve bought into it. You believe it works.

But, for some reason, it’s not working for you.

Looking through your stats, you realize your site isn’t capturing the leads you’ve been promised.

What gives?

I have an idea of what’s going on, and it’s completely fixable …

You are not alone

As content marketers, we spend a lot of time obsessing over increasing traffic. It’s the sexy thing to do.

However, the number of leads fails to match our expectations because we don’t spend enough time creating a killer call to action.

A call to action is the most effective tactic to convert random traffic into loyal readers and paying customers.

The most profitable sites use this tactic to convince readers to sign up for a newsletter, download an ebook, attend a webinar, or purchase a product.

This is the difference between a highly profitable website and a failed marketing initiative. Yet most screw it up.

Dozens of call to action mistakes can doom your efforts to convert traffic into leads or sales.

Below, I’ve gathered 20 of the most common …

Don’t make these beginner mistakes

1. No Call to Action

You spend countless hours guest posting, in social media, and formatting your website for search engine optimization purposes.

But your effort is wasted if you don’t ask your readers to take action. They may come to your site, read your information, and never come back.

Give your readers an opportunity to subscribe.

2. Below the Fold

When you visit the most popular sites in the world, you will notice that you never have to scroll to find the call to action.

The most valuable real estate on any website is the top third of the page. Too often, marketers waste that space with a large image of their logo or random images that distract readers from taking action.

The truth is, many of your visitors will never scroll down and view all of your content.

If you want to increase conversions, put your call to action at the top of your blog where every reader will see it. (Take a look at the Generate WordPress child theme for a very clear example of this.)

3. Not Authoritative

If you don’t speak with confidence and authority, your readers won’t have confidence to take action on your site.

Tell them exactly what you want them to do, and do so with conviction.

4. Not Specific

Your readers lead busy lives and don’t always have time to think about what you want them to do.

Your job is to spell it out for them.

If you want them to enter their email address, tell them in your call to action. If you want them to click a link, include the words “click here” in the link.

Always connect the dots for your readers so taking action is a no-brainer.

5. Too Much Self Proclaimed Hype

Unless a recognized third party says your blog is the largest, best, or any other superlative, leave it out of your call to action. The last thing you want to do is look like a used car salesmen.

Consequently, a great way to increase subscribers is to have an industry authority quote how much they enjoy reading your content.

6. Multiple Calls to Action

What’s the one thing you want readers to do on your blog?

Do you want them to sign up for your list? And click on ads? And buy your products? And go to your social media profiles?

When you have too many calls to action on your site, your readers become paralyzed by the choices and leave your site.

Pick one or two actions you want your readers to take, and build your design around that. Don’t leave readers confused about what they’re supposed to do next.

7. Puny Call to Action

If you have a call to action and no one can find it, you may as well have no call to action at all. Make it big enough so people can’t miss it.

I’ve never seen a website with a call to action that is too big.

Fix these intermediate mistakes and watch your list grow

8. No Social Proof

One of the most effective ways to get someone to take action on your site is to prove that others have done it too.

Here on Copyblogger, you can see how many of your fellow content marketers have joined the email list. Over 75,000 people can’t be wrong.

If you have a new blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, you should to omit this figure. But think about other creative ways to use social proof to lend credibility to your site.

9. No Benefit to Signing Up

Calls to action such as “Call for a free consultation” or “Sign up for our newsletter” don’t motivate your readers.

The words “free consultation” have come to mean “sales pitch,” and signing up for your newsletter is giving you permission to sell stuff.

Highlight exactly what your readers are going to receive when they take action. How will they benefit?

10. Too Risky

If your call to action involves a financial transaction, then offering a free trial or a money-back guarantee will boost conversions.

If something is free to download or subscribe to, mention that immediately.

11. No Urgency

People are extremely motivated to take action out of fear of missing out on an opportunity.

One reason webinars work so well at getting people to take action is because the software only allows for a limited number of seats.

You can create this urgency in other offers as well.

For instance, if you want more readers to download your ebook or free report, try offering it for a limited time only.

12. Colors Blend In

Pop quiz: Does your call to action jump out at your readers the moment they arrive to your blog? If not, you might want to rethink your color palette.

For instance, if your blog has a blue background, having dark blue text is a big mistake. The contrast is too close and most of your readers will have a hard time immediately finding your call to action.

13. No Credibility

If you are a brand new blogger, earning the credibility that will entice people to take action is difficult.

You have two quick ways to get around this.

First, put the logos of your biggest customers above your call to action. This shows that the market has validated your products and services. This expertise will extend to your blog.

Second, start guest posting on popular blogs immediately. Once you have a guest post on a popular blog, you can put their logo above your call to action following the words “As seen in.”

(A quick note: you will want to ask for permission to post third party logos on your site.)

Can you imagine how much more appealing your call to action will be if the words “As seen in Copyblogger” follow it?

14. Loaded with Jargon

Too many marketers load their content with industry jargon instead of writing in words their readers actually use.

If you sell software with a 128-bit encryption key, the only people likely to understand what that means are software developers and IT professionals.

Unlike English class — where you got points for using big words — simple words work best when trying to persuade someone to take action.

Advanced mistakes that keep your list from exploding

15. Wrong Offer

If your offer doesn’t interest your readers, how convincing the copywriting is or how beautiful your buttons are won’t matter. They won’t take action.

This sounds like common sense, but it happens more often than you can imagine.

Think about the number of websites with ebooks and software that never get downloaded.

The bottom line: The best way to create a killer call to action is to offer something your readers really want, when they want it, the way they want it.

16. Undefined Sales Funnel

You need to understand your sales funnel in order to make the most out of your call to action.

Typically, a blog is great for getting readers to sign up for a free report to build your email list. However, it’s not so good at selling expensive consulting services.

In many cases, your job as a content marketer is to build an efficient sales funnel that will convert your readers into subscribers, and your subscribers into customers.

17. No Empathy

Do you know what keeps your readers up at night? What do they desire more than anything else in the world?

Chances are it’s not exactly what you are offering.

For instance, Jon Morrow offers a free report called “52 Headline Hacks that shows bloggers how to create headlines”. But the headline on his call to action is “A cheat sheet for writing blog posts that go viral.”

Few bloggers dream about crafting the perfect headline, but every blogger dreams about a post that goes viral. And headlines are a key ingredient to making that happen.

Dig down deep into the soul of your readers and discover how to make their dreams come true.

18. No Tangible Benefit

If you’ve been selling products or services for any length of time, you’ve probably heard that you need to sell benefits, not features.

But now you need to take that a step further and create tangible benefits.

For instance, the benefit “get more traffic” can become “Double your traffic in 30 days.”

Or the benefit “save money” can become “save $932 a month.”

This allows your readers to vividly imagine a better life if they take action on your site. Just be sure you’re absolutely honest in your claim about what your product or service will do.

19. No A/B Testing

At least once a month, you should test your call to action to improve your subscription rate until you’ve deemed it good enough.

Test your headline, copy, buttons, location, and your offer to determine what gets more people to take the most action.

20. Never Studied Copywriting

Let’s get perfectly blunt here.

Although trying to create a killer call to action without studying copywriting is possible, it’s highly unlikely.

If you’ve never studied copywriting, you need to start right now. Use the free resources right here on Copyblogger, and pick up a couple of the most important copywriting books.

A scary fact

Every time a reader leaves your site without subscribing, you’ve lost a sales lead.

And you know what? You may never get that lead back.

A killer call to action can mean the difference between building a popular website and toiling with one that lingers in obscurity.

Review the tactics I’ve listed above and start testing them one by one until you’ve created a call to action your readers can’t resist.

What are you waiting for? Wasting time is literally costing you money …

About the Author: Greg Digneo teaches businesses how to capture traffic, increase conversions, and generate more sales leads. Click here to read his free report “The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Killer Call to Action.”

A few years ago, I ran my first marathon in Seattle.

I’d love to tell you I ran strong to the finish, but by mile 18 I was wiped out, focusing entirely on putting one foot in front of the other. As I trudged along in the final hour, I spotted a volunteer handing out fresh orange slices on the side of the road ahead of me.

Tired as I was, I made sure to change my position, slow down, and gratefully accept the gift. The piece of fresh orange was an offer I couldn’t refuse — even though it was free, I would have gladly paid for it if I’d had the money and was in the right frame of mind to have a conversation. 

Two miles ahead, I saw another volunteer handing out a different gift: halves of Krispy Kreme donuts. Unfortunately, this offer did not excite me (or any other runners I saw) at all.

I’m no puritan. I’ve have eaten more than my share of donuts over the years. But three hours into the longest race of my life was bad timing for a sugar rush. The offer was unattractive and a poor fit for the context.

Ironically, there were no donuts available after the 26.2-mile race, something many runners would have been thrilled to see. Keep this in mind if you are ever in charge of providing donuts for marathoners.

An offer you can’t refuse

A compelling offer is like a slice of orange at mile 18.

It’s a marriage proposal from the guy or girl you’ve been waiting for your whole life.

An offer you can’t refuse is like the $20,000 Bonderman Fellowship offered every year to graduating seniors at the University of Washington. The fellowship has very strict rules: Take our money in cash and travel the world on your own; don’t come back for eight months. Oh, and once in a while send us a quick note so we can tell your parents you’re alive. If you’d guess that hundreds of students compete for the fellowship every year, you’d be right. 



So how can you construct an offer that your prospects won’t refuse?

Remember, first you need to sell what people want to buy — give them the fish. Then make sure you’re marketing to the right people at the right time.

Sometimes you can have the right crowd at the wrong time. Marathon runners are happy to eat donuts after the race, but not at mile 18.

Then you take your product or service and craft it into a compelling pitch … an offer they can’t refuse.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Understand that what we want and what we say we want are not always the same thing

The next time you get on a crowded plane and head to your cramped middle seat in the back, with a screaming infant seated behind you at no extra charge, remember this principle.

For years travelers have been complaining about crowded planes and cramped seats, and for years airlines have been ignoring them. Every once in a while, an airline creates a campaign to respond to the concern: “We’re giving more legroom in coach!” 

It sounds great, but a few months later they inevitably reverse course and remove the extra inches of space. Why?

Because despite what they say, most travelers don’t value the extra legroom enough to pay for it; instead, they value the lowest-priced flights above any other concerns. Airlines have figured this out, so they give people what they want — not what they say they want.

A good offer has to be what people actually want and are willing to pay for. 



2. Most of us like to buy, but we don’t usually like to be sold



An offer you can’t refuse may apply subtle pressure, but nobody likes a hard sell.

Instead, compelling offers often create an illusion that a purchase is an invitation, not a pitch. Social shopping services such as Groupon have been successful in recruiting their customers to do most of their marketing for them. Indeed, the biggest complaint about these businesses is that they sell out of deals too quickly, also known as “They won’t let me give them my money!”

As you might imagine, the path of least resistance is a good place to stand.

Marathon runners do not need to be sold on the benefits of fresh oranges after three hours of running. Adventurous college students will grasp the value of a $20,000 “go travel somewhere and do what you want” fellowship without much explaining.


Offer Construction Project

Here’s an exercise that will help you put together the offer your audience won’t be able to refuse.

Remember the Magic Formula:
The Right Audience + the Right Promise + the Right Time = 
Offer You Can’t Refuse

BASICS

• What are you selling? _______
• How much does it cost? _______
• Who will take immediate action on this offer? ________

BENEFITS

• The primary benefit is ________
• An important secondary benefit is ________



OBJECTIONS



What are the main objections to the offer?

How will you counter these objections?

TIMELINESS

• Why should someone buy this now?

• What can I add to make this offer even more compelling?

Perceived value and the expensive Starbucks run




After nearing the end of a five-hour drive from Boise to Salt Lake City, I stopped off at a Starbucks about twenty minutes away from the bookstore I was speaking at that evening.

On the way inside, I grabbed something from the trunk and left the keys inside. Nice move, Chris. It was even worse because I didn’t realize my mistake until I had finished my latte and email session an hour later, shortly before I was due to arrive at the bookstore.

I was mad at myself for being so stupid, but I had to think quickly.

Using a combination of technology (iPod touch, MiFi, cell phone), I located the number of a local locksmith and quickly rang him up. “Uh, can you please come as soon as possible?” He agreed to be as fast as he could.

Much to my surprise, the locksmith pulled up in a van just three minutes later. Impressive, right? Then he got out his tools and approached the passenger door. In less than ten seconds, he had the door open, allowing me to retrieve my keys from the trunk and get on with my life. “How much do I owe you?” I asked. Perhaps it’s because I don’t own a car and the last time I paid a locksmith was ten years ago, or maybe I’m just cheap, but for whatever reason I expected him to ask for something like $20. Instead, he said, “That will be $50, please.”

I hadn’t discussed the price with him before he came out and was in no position to negotiate, so I gave him the cash and thanked him. But something was unsettling about the transaction, and I tried to figure out what it was.

I was mad at myself for locking my keys in the car — it was obviously no one’s fault but my own — but I also felt that $50 was too much to pay for such a brief service.


As I drove away, I realized that I secretly wanted him to take longer in getting to me, even though that would have delayed me further. I wanted him to struggle with unlocking my car as part of a major effort, even though that made no sense whatsoever. The locksmith met my need and provided a quick, comprehensive solution to my problem. I was unhappy about our exchange for no good reason.

The problem of perceived value

Mulling it over, I realized that the way we make purchasing decisions isn’t always rational. I thought back to something that had happened in the early days of my business. I had produced a twenty-five-page report on booking discount airfare and sold it for $25. Many people bought it, but others complained: Twenty-five pages for $25? That’s too expensive.

I knew I couldn’t please everyone, but I didn’t understand this specific objection.

The point of the report was to help people save money on plane tickets, and many readers reported saving $300 or more after one quick read. What does the length of the report have to do with the price? I remember thinking about that one complaint.

If I gave you a treasure map, would you complain that it was only one page long?

It turned out the joke was on me: All of us place a subjective value on goods or services that may not relate to what they “should” be.

Just as what we want and what we say we want aren’t always the same thing, the way we place a value on something isn’t always rational. You must learn to think about value the way your customers do, not necessarily the way you would like them to.

The good news …

The good news is that when you do understand what people want, everything else gets a lot easier.

Like the orange slice at mile eighteen of the marathon, an offer you can’t refuse comes along at just the right time. As you follow your blueprint to freedom, think carefully about how you can create a similarly compelling offer.

The next step is to take your offer out into the world. Are you doing that?


About the Author: Chris Guillebeau is the author of The $100 Startup, available today from Amazon.com or your favorite local bookstore. The book provides a blueprint for creating irresistible offers that increase income and improve the state of the world. You can also read his free blog at ChrisGuillebeau.com.